Modernist Design Theory - Lecture 23/11/2016

Form follows function - link to The Cog

Technology
Anti historicist - doesn't look backwards for a solution, embraces the new

15th July 1972 - 3:32pm - the date and time of the death of Modernism, according to Charles Jencks, with the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe block
Modernism tried to change the world for the better

Helvetica documentary by Gary Hustwit

Van Doesburg (1929) - Simultaneous Counter-Composition
Manifest of "The Style" 1918:
Devoid of nationalist/individualist interests - petty politics

Beatrice Wade (1932) - The Crystal Goblet
- if wine is what you love, you don't care about having a fancy cup to drink it out of
- metaphor for Modernist design - humility - modernist design shouldn't be greedy or noticeable - should just do what it is made to do, and in doing so improve the world

This is a Printing Office

Massimo Vignelli
The life of a designer is the life of a fight - a fight against ugliness, aesthetic and social
Modernist design is lasting, post-modern design quickly fades as it desperately tries to be relevant in the moment it is created
Modernist has timeless values
People can't really get behind cynicism and sarcasm forever - especially when it isn't making the world any better

Experimental Jetset
Modernist design practices combined with pop culture
Disrepresentation
Anti-Tendenkunst - against art tendencies
The process of representation = anti revolutionary (representative art - portraits etc) inherently bourgeoise
representative cultural communication - propaganda etc = art that tells you something: how to think, who is good, who is bad, who to be, what to like, what to buy
Modern art doesn't tell you anything or to do anything - it just exists and is shared

People who tell you to 'free yourself' from the MAN & capitalism still adhere to advertising, they are trying to convert you to their way of thinking
Abstraction - a move away from realism but towards reality - the ultimate, most raw form of engagement
Workers of the world, unite - Marx
Pirates of the internet, unite - Experimental Jetset
First Things First Manifesto

BAUHAUS
Disciplinary specialisation is another form of social alienation - a collective struggle is better than an individual one - interdisciplinary collectivism

Paul Klee - Pedagogical Sketchbook (1925)
Wassily Kadinsky - Point and Line to Plane (1926)
Gyorgy Kepes - Language of Vision (1944)
Lazlo Moholy-Nagy - Vision in Motion (1947)

The Bauhaus principles are why the Nazis shut it down - they didn't believe in a universal language and collective progress, they believed in Germany first forever

Marinetti, F.T - The Manifesto of Futurism - anti-Bauhaus
basically far right wing modernism - no beauty without violence or aggression
war is the only way to create a pure world - they wanted to fight "every opportunistic or utilitarian cowardice"
technological destruction, ethnic cleansing, fascism
"war is beautiful because it enriches a flowering meadow with the fiery orchids of machine guns"
fighting for a new (horrible sounding) future
fiat ars - pereat mandas

Walter Benjamin - Humanity is so alienated with itself it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.

Decisions + change of direction

This year I wanted to focus on themes of society and possibly technology, as I focused a lot on political aspects last year. One of my main reasons for this change of direction was because investigating into politics, while I enjoy it and find it worthwhile, frustrates and challenges me. After some thought, and my investment in following the American election only to be horribly disgusted and infuriated by the result yesterday, I've decided I need to use my frustration to fuel a historically and politically charged exploration of visual culture. What's the point of making work if it doesn't have some form of strong feeling or message behind it? Mainly rage.

I've been primarily looking into American politics, namely how the nation was formed (or stolen), unified (sort of) and how it has changed into what it is today. The War for Independence is very interesting to me as it was fought by men who wanted to forge a country for free people, and factions of the American people have since continuously worked throughout history against this morale, dividing and segregating for years based on hundreds of varying prejudices, often times saying they are enforced by the Constitution, written largely by men who wanted liberty and freedom from the yoke of corrupt monarchy.
Oil paintings of battles and figureheads are the primary form of visual communication from this time, alongside tomes of accounts, recollections, battle plans, interviews etc. I want to investigate the relationship between the written and the visual in terms of historical accuracy and representational value.

A massive inspiration for me in choosing this topic has been the Broadway musical, Hamilton, which illustrates the history of Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers, whose life was peppered with danger, genius, acclaim, romance, disgrace and tragedy. His relationships with the men who forged modern American government and his contribution to it were often overlooked in the historical accounts of the time, mainly because a lot of his contemporaries desired to better themselves rather than giving him and his allies the credit. Names like Thomas Jefferson are more famous and renowned than obscure names such as Hercules Mulligan, Cato or Marquis de Lafayette, although the continuation and security of American independence are owed largely to the three latter figures.

This is an element I want to explore in this module, how history is very much written by the victors, but today we all have a voice to express how we individually feel and respond to events, and how this will affect how history is documented in the future, especially with politically charged illustration, design, film, music and other forms of creative expression being prevalent in today's society. After all, it was this musical that enlightened me on various figures and events that I wasn't previously aware of, rather than a history book - my first bit of proof that creative expression is today a much more influential tool than traditional methods of information reception.

Core Texts - Animation - Lecture 9/11/2016

Marx concept of base/ superstructure

                          Determines content & form of it
                          /                                              \
                         /                                                 \
                      Base                                    Superstructure
                         \                                               /
                          \                                             /
                            Reflects form & legitimises

The Frankfurt School
Dialectical materialism + culture as an industry - formulaic production without purpose or integrity - homogenous and predictable

• Deceived masses - caught in a circle of manipulation & retroactive need in which the unity of the system grows ever stronger - people depend on it
• Satiates superficial needs, which prevents the formation of more fundamental designs

Fordism - factory style churning our faster and faster - lose the capability to know what you're even making - instead of one person making a car, thousands of people make one bit of a car each over and over again

Adorno:

Standardisation - to conceal this - pseudo-individualisation - easy to produce, easier to consume = social cement

Creates passivity - rhythmically obedient and emotional types - popular music industry is a pacifying agent to keep people obedient and too passive to know what's happening

Promotes psychic adjustment to the prevailing power structure

PASSIVE CREATION

(Dancing to the rhythm of your own oppression) 

Nobody is encouraged to do anything new or risky because the public are too stagnated and ignorant to accept it (I'd like to say these are the views of Adorno, I aren't ranting (I am a little) )

Adorno believes people conform because there is no other option 

Marcuse:

Popular culture vs Affirmative Culture

Culture affirms & conceals the new conditions of social life

Authentic culture: 

• Real
• Multi-dimensional
• Active consumption
• Individual creation
• Imagination
• Negation
• Autonomous
  
  TV, Films, music, art - can be all these things

Walter Benjamin:
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction - 1936
The culture of the masses CAN be meaningful

The message of something is not determined by its production but by its consumption - we can resist to change and play with what we take in - a form of rebellion

Liking things for personal creative reasons - role reversal, irony, mockery, rebellion, playfulness, FUN

Dialectical materialism - changes in the substructure (advancements in technology, print methods etc) have radically changed the superstructure 

AURA = Presence, Authenticity, Authority

AURA:

• Creativity
• Genius
• Eternal value
• Tradition
• Authority
• Authenticity
• Autonomy
• Distance
• Mystery

KEY CONCEPTS:

• Aura
• Culture Industry
• Dialectical materialism
• Technology
• Originality
• Cult Value
• Exhibition Value
• Auratic culture to democratic culture

"I'm sorry I'm so worthless and you're so great" - art gallery and museum thinking - gives way to Fascist acceptance
The fact we can alter and change existing art gives us power over it - laughs at its supposed authority & take back control for ourselves (by drawing devil horns on the Mona Lisa)

The work of art reproduced becomes made for the purpose of REPRODUCTION - art/feeling as a commodity

Art responds as art - becomes abstract + spiritual

Filmmaking is collaborative - always involves a team - can create creative methods of consumption - rebels against social authoritarianism 

Research Task - Images and Theory - Commodity Fetishism

Idea derived from Marx (Capital: Volume 1) - inanimate things are seen to have value by themselves
Commodities only have any value because we put meanings and values upon them

Money isn't actually physically worth anything - everyone and everything says that it is the most necessary and precious thing so it has become just that

Intrinsic human quality - every society since humans were intelligent enough to form them has been centred on one form of currency or another. In some places, money is a digital number uploaded into a database that doesn't exist in the physical world, and can be converted into paper and metal coins by way of a plastic card with a microchip in it that goes into a box built into the side of a building. And in other places, money is a goat.
- humans will always have to place value on something to drive them

There are a thousand guards guarding one king, but because they are told he is in charge, they are unable to take control, although they are more numerous and powerful together. Power resides where people believe it resides. Belief is more influential than proof because it is easier, less harsh or difficult to accept, and can be altered to people's personal preferences. This is why religion exists and why people are so fiercely protective of it, disproving someones religion is tantamount to tearing their perception of the world in half, which is obviously terrifying.

Value is a social relationship
Commodification of classic art - the Mona Lisa - everyone thinks it is great BECAUSE everyone thinks it is great. There is just an objective consensus that it has a quality, fuelled primarily by its fame.
Banksy - messages about anti-capitalist thinking have been taken and printed and sold on mugs and pillows and shit. People have been so blinded by feckless and empty adoration for something they know is popular they have missed the entire point of what they are looking at. Some of the people who have paid thousands to own the work are actively working against the anti consumer message of it in their daily lives. Ripping people off on loans and mortgages all day in a bank and coming home to a Banksy painting hanging in your living room is almost hilariously ironic and equally tragic, that the art has become castrated and diluted by its own popularity.

There is no relationship between production value and sale value - a name/brand will always drive prices up because people will pay much more to ensure that other people know that they can afford whatever brand it is. Consciously or not, we are conditioned to assume that because one jumper has an Italian mans name on it, it is a more prestigious jumper that will improve our lives, improve how others see us, ultimately completing us. And when it inevitably doesn't, we become bored and desire some other thing that definitely will.

Christmas has gone through several forms of commodification for one reason or another:

• Begun as a Pagan festival celebrating the winter solstice - as less work had to be done in the winter, and the people had the spring weather to look forward to
• Norse culture also had a festival called Yule, based around Odin going on a hunt through the sky
• Christianity eventually took over the time period and absorbed most of these other western religions into itself and redeveloped the time as Christmas, celebrating the birth of Christ
• As society became less controlled by religion, the meaning of Christmas began to focus on presents and the commodities of Christmas, and this has continued and amplified significantly in the last few decades - almost all religious imagery is absent from Christmas celebrations and half the people who celebrate it call it Xmas - the beginning of a new phase where capitalism has taken the place of the church absorbing all those religions and cultures, and successfully usurped the holiday and converted all its followers.

THEORIES for further research

• Character Mask
• Commodity (Marxism)
• Exchange Value
• False Consciousness
• Law of Value
• Labour Theory of Value
• Real Prices and Ideal Prices
• Reification
• Relations of Production
• Use Value
• Value Form

Reification - similar - giving non physical/real things attributes and worth, such as fear or the concept of money etc - e.g. a wedding ring being more than a band of metal, now a physical signifier of love and commitment

Warhols soup cans - they were being printed in his studio "The Factory", he wasn't even physically doing the printing - is the work even his? 

He produced them like this to illustrate that they are worthless - but people saw his name on them and immediately imprinted a value and a worth on them because his work was famous - they don't care what he was trying to say or what the message of the work is, as long as it is labelled in a way that will make them look or feel more important for having paid through the nose for it, it has a much higher value.